What’s playing over your headphones lately? Music, or a favorite morning talk show? You could use your spare time as a way to find out what’s going on with your peers and learn new techniques through podcasts! Podcasts are pre-recorded radio shows you can download to your phone, music player, or computer. This month, we’ve found three we think all private-independent school administrators will appreciate.
EDUtalk
Release Schedule: Publishes roughly twice per week
Description: "One of the most innovative, interactive professional learning resources in Scottish education[, according to] Teaching Scotland. EDUtalk encourages people to talk about education, using mobile and web technologies."
Why We Chose This: Run by a set of Scottish educators, EDUtalk is curated content at its finest. EDUtalk gets its content for listeners from educators around the world, who submitting their (audible) thoughts for selection by the podcast's editors. Clips run from ten minutes to over an hour, from one-offs to series, from conference recordings to private sessions. It's a hodgepodge of good quality information from the educational side of the Internet, and it's one well worth diving into.
Previous Episodes Include:
TEDTalks Education
Release Schedule: Sporadic
Description: "What should future schools look like? How do brains learn? Some of the world's greatest educators, researchers, and community leaders share their stories and visions onstage at the TED conference, TEDx events and partner events around the world. TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading."
Why We Chose This: Some of our favorite third-party educational content comes from the TED speaker series, and we'd be remiss if we didn't provide this podcast series on our list of must-listens.
Previous Episodes Include:
- Clint Smith: The danger of silence
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Hans and Ola Rosling: How not to be ignorant about the world
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Terry Moore: Why is 'x' the unknown? [Note: Not Terry Moore of ISM fame. Sorry, folks!]
NPR: Education
Release Schedule: Daily
Description: The Education section of the National Public Radio (NPR) news website, with downloadable audio files.
Why We Chose This: NPR is known as a (relatively) unbiased news source, with quality reporting that can often go overlooked in your average education blog. While the Education section isn't really a podcast series per se, most education articles have associated audio files of superb quality.
Previous Recordings Include:
- A Recipe For Success With Two Student Groups That Often Struggle
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One Teacher's Quest To Build Language Skills ... And Self-Confidence
A quick note: ISM is not affiliated with any of these podcasts directly, and so advice at times may conflict with ISM theory or guidance. We're offering you these resources as a chance to take from them what works for your school and to be re-inspired for fall!
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 12 No. 9 Three Podcasts for Division Heads
ISM Monthly Update for School Heads Vol. 13 No. 10 Three Podcasts for School Heads
ISM Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 8 No. 7 Pointers in Podcasts For Contract Season
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 38 No. 1 21st Century Education and Your School's Parents
